User:Slowking4/All knowledge versus free culture

(English) This is an essay. It expresses the opinions and ideas of some Wikimedians but may not have wide support. This is not policy on Meta, but it may be a policy or guideline on other Wikimedia projects. Feel free to update this page as needed, or use the discussion page to propose major changes.

sit rep

• vision:

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. [1]

• mission:
  • The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
    In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation will make and keep useful information from its projects available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity. [2]
• Foundation Licensing policy
  • "A project-specific policy, in accordance with United States law and the law of countries where the project content is predominantly accessed (if any), that recognizes the limitations of copyright law (including case law) as applicable to the project, and permits the upload of copyrighted materials that can be legally used in the context of the project, regardless of their licensing status."
  • "Such EDPs must be minimal. Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events, to include identifying protected works such as logos, or to complement (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works. An EDP may not allow material where we can reasonably expect someone to upload a freely licensed file for the same purpose, such as is the case for almost all portraits of living notable individuals. Any content used under an EDP must be replaced with a freely licensed work whenever one is available which will serve the same educational purpose. "

Conundrum

• conflict of vision "freely share in the sum of all knowledge", with mission "develop educational content under a free license" and policy "must be minimal" [3]
• i.e. some knowledge is copyrighted, fair use, or orphaned.
• we can freely share copyrighted material under fair use legally, but choose to restrict for cultural reasons.
• other institutions use fair use much more extensively
  • Infographic Shows How Fair Use Promotes Creation of New Knowledge
  • AU center for social media Fair Use Best Practices
  • ARL fair use best practices
  • ALRC releases Discussion Paper on copyright law reform
• other individuals hate fair use [4]
• to the extent fair use material is deleted, that legally could be included, then wikipedia is harmed for cultural reasons

Legal concerns

• if the policy is to minimize legal risk, history indicates there is a higher risk from FoP images in Germany than fair use in the US.
  • i.e. there was a DMCA takedown for FoP images, and a free image of a clothespin sculpture in Philadelphia, while no takedown for the fair use image of the same work, in the same article. [5]
• if the policy is to minimize legal correspondence asserting copyright, be aware some agents will assert "copyfraud" regardless of where the line is drawn, or what the policy is.
• Fair use images have received DMCA takedowns, as copyfraud, i.e.
  • wmf:File:DMCA Talitha Getty.pdf - meant to be used in accordance with en:WP:NFCI §10, except that it was apparently from a commercial source (en:Special:Diff/413212257).
  • wmf:DMCA The Danish Girl - used in accordance with en:WP:NFCI §4 (en:Special:Diff/674379952).
  • wmf:DMCA Chillerama - used in accordance with en:WP:NFCI §4 (en:Special:Diff/423724948).
  • wmf:DMCA RIAA Kate Bush - en:File:Kate Bush Deeper Understanding Sample.ogg, apparently a non-free sound sample for en:Deeper Understanding, based on the upload log. Deleted as en:WP:F5, not as a DMCA takedown. Did the WMF decline the takedown request for some reason?
  • wmf:DMCA UFC - used in accordance with en:WP:NFCI §4 (en:Special:Diff/480794425).
  • wmf:DMCA of DMCA LIPTAK - a takedown request for a takedown request, which the Wikimedia Foundation decided to decline.